During machining of a workpiece by a cutter of a machine tool, chips of workpiece material can buildup on the cutter and within the workpiece reducing the efficiency of machining and increasing the load on the cutter. By increasing the load on the cutter, it can become fatigued and fail earlier than anticipated increasing machining costs and reducing the production rate of workpieces machined by the machine tool. Additionally, in some instances, if chip buildup is not timely removed it can affect machining quality resulting in an increase in the number of machined workpieces that are rejected during quality control inspection.
For example, in deep hole machining, a gun boring cutter used to bore a deep hole or a reaming tool used to finish a hole must be periodically retracted away from the workpiece during machining to release chips that have built up on the cutter and/or in the hole and cause them to be removed from the cutter. Additionally, for cutting tools that have high pressure coolant flowing through the cutter, retracting the cutter from the hole enables the high pressure coolant to flush chips from the cutter and clear them from the hole.
This chip removal cycle is commonly known as a "pecking" cycle. During a "pecking" cycle, the cutter is periodically retracted from the hole to remove chip buildup from the cutter and chips that have accumulated in the hole, typically, after the cutter has been fed into the workpiece a predetermined time or fixed distance during machining the workpiece. Depending upon the workpiece, its material of construction and the depth of the hole being bored, the machine tool may perform a "pecking" cycle after each couple of inches bored by the cutter. Thus, in deep hole drilling, "pecking" cycles typically occur several times during the machining of each workpiece significantly increasing the machining cycle time of each workpiece while reducing the rate of production of finished workpieces.